I have an ISO image of the Windows 7 installation DVD, but I can't burn it to CD or DVD. I have an empty flash drive with plenty of space. Is there any way I can put the ISO image on it and install from it as if it were a CD?

Thanks, this worked for me after other methods failed.
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JamesFeb 5 '12 at 9:05

@Matthew Read - Hey, I followed these steps and whe nI try to boot from the USB drive I get "NTLDR is Missing". Any ideas? This is with a Windows XP Pro cd. I made sure to use bootsect with the '/nt52' parameter. (I grabbed bootsect from my Win7 x64 cd, but I also tried an x86 one I found online)
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PandincusFeb 10 '12 at 6:02

@Pandincus Looks like I forgot a step for XP, sorry about that! You need to copy over BOOT.INI, NTLDR, and NTDETECT to the USB key as well. I'm not sure exactly where they are on the XP disc, but they're in the root of the boot drive if you have XP installed somewhere. I'm not entirely sure if that's all that's needed, I'll try to verify it soon. There are tools that will do most of this for you, though, see here for example.
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Matthew ReadFeb 10 '12 at 17:40

Can you just quickly mention how to mark a USB drive partition as "active"; I've not heard of that before.
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Neil BarnwellJul 19 '10 at 11:21

1

@Neil Barnwell, you simply go to disk management or any partition management tool and just set the drives partition to active in the same way as you would a hard drive. In Windows disk Management, right click and choose Active.
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William HilsumJul 19 '10 at 12:29

4

Your solution doesn't address making sure a proper boot sector exists on the USB key, which I believe is necessary for it to boot. @Matthew Read's solution does address this.
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ultrasawbladeJun 24 '11 at 16:15

@Bogdan0x400, open the command prompt, cd to the folder where unetbootin.exe is located and start it with the option "targetdrive=f:" unetbootin targetdrive=f:" (replace "f:" with your drive's letter)
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sm4rk0Feb 20 '13 at 0:24

I know this question is a few years old, but I think this program is worth mentioning (it's also easy).Your Universal Multiboot Integrator
You can use it to add many Operating Systems on one flash drive (both Windows and Linux, I don't know about MAC OSX)
You can also use it to add other ISO images, like Norton Ghost SRD, Acronis True Image and many other tools.

Almost a copy of my answer, anyway - I don't think step 4 is needed - I have never needed to rename anything and I do not recommend step 2. Any sort of Virtual drive program installs a driver which will always be running and slow your machine (although not exactly by a lot, and I do like virtual clone drive). If this is a one off job, it is much better just to use Winrar or 7 zip as I said. It will dothe same job and will not do anything to the system.
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William HilsumOct 28 '09 at 20:48

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I don't understand how it is almost a copy of your answer, anyway - thanks for the critique... lol
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pjemmertOct 28 '09 at 20:58